Modern aircraft are increasingly complex. The complexities of these aircraft have led to an increasing need for automated fault detection systems. These fault detection systems are designed to monitor the various systems of the aircraft to detect potential faults. These systems are designed to detect these potential faults such that the potential faults can be addressed before the potential faults lead to serious system failure and possible in-flight shutdowns, take-off aborts, and delays or cancellations.
Engines are, of course, a particularly critical part of the aircraft. As such, fault detection for aircraft engines are an important part of an aircrafts fault detection system. Some traditional engine fault detection has been limited to methods that use engine data taken over a relatively small period of time. While these methods have been effective in detecting some faults, they are less effective in detecting faults where symptoms arise over a relatively larger time period. In particular, those faults which show symptoms over multiple phases of operation. For these types of faults some traditional fault detection methods have been unable to unable to consistently detect all potential faults that can effect the operation of the engine.